Tasktop blogshttp://tasktop.com/blog
enSummertime and the Integration is Easy http://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/summertime-and-integration-easy
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<div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <div>There is a saying that the only things you can be certain of in life are death and taxes. At Tasktop there is&nbsp;another certainty, every three months we release software. Our regular delivery cadence has become a&nbsp;heartbeat for Tasktop, delivering innovation in regular, consumable chunks. &nbsp;And today, July 28th 2015&nbsp;we announced the next release of our software.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>The July release includes new versions of Tasktop Sync and Tasktop Data with a lot of new features and new systems to connect to. I will try and share the highlights but for more details check out our <a href="http://www.tasktop.com/product-news">product&nbsp;pages</a>.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><strong>Tasktop Sync</strong></div><div>This release is Tasktop Sync 4.3. The 4.3 version number highlights how mature Tasktop Sync has become--supporting millions of transactions every day with well over 190,000 seats. This release&nbsp;focused on two main themes: expanded support for requirements and enabling organizations to&nbsp;connect legacy systems to their new tools.&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><strong>Completing our Requirements Story</strong></div><div>Over the last 12 months we have seen more and more interest in requirements. Perhaps this interest is driven by the pressures of scaling Agile and the adoption of frameworks like <a href="http://www.disciplinedagiledelivery.com/">Disciplined Agile Delivery</a>,&nbsp;or maybe the existence of next generation tools are driving demand. But whatever the root cause, that&nbsp;interest is translating into more requests from Tasktop customers. Our improved support for&nbsp;requirements began in April 2014 with the addition of Artifact Relationship Management (ARM), and has&nbsp;continued with the additional of more requirements tools as well as improvements to ARM. The July&nbsp;release adds two new requirements tools to our family with Blueprint and iRise. Blueprint is a leading&nbsp;vendor in the requirements space, providing capabilities to not only better define and manage&nbsp;requirements, but also provide traceability and management reporting. iRise is a little different from our&nbsp;standard requirements integration. They are a provider of visualizations and high-fidelity prototypes.&nbsp;We are really excited about adding these two technology partners to our ecosystem. Not only is&nbsp;integration a key component of their broader solution, but we have many customers in common.&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><strong>Connecting legacy to Agile</strong></div><div>When I visit customers, I am often surprised by the number of ‘older’ tools still in use. Software tools&nbsp;don’t seem to die. But that should come as no surprise. These tools have evolved into mission critical&nbsp;elements of the software delivery lifecycle, and are the only place where many of the key business&nbsp;processes that enable companies to deliver working software exist. But modern software teams want&nbsp;modern tools, and Agile teams, with their focus on empowerment and control want to use the tools that&nbsp;make sense to them. This is where Tasktop comes in. Tasktop provides the ability to connect legacy&nbsp;tools with modern ones and to connect traditional processes to Agile ones. This ability creates a ‘best of&nbsp;both worlds’ approach for our customers, allowing them to continue to use one tool at the ‘enterprise’ level while supporting many different Agile tools at the team level. In the July Tasktop release, HP PPM,&nbsp;IBM Rational ClearQuest and CA Harvest have been added to our family of connectors.&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>But not content with delivering 5 new connectors and extending the capabilities of Sync, we also added&nbsp;lots more capabilities to Tasktop Data.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><strong>Tasktop Data</strong></div><div>For organizations that want to create a centralized database of software development metrics, Tasktop&nbsp;Data provides the ability for organizations to replace manual or semi-automated approaches to&nbsp;collecting data from their software tools, with an automated solution. Not only does this mean you can&nbsp;eliminate complicated ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) processes to get data from your tools to this&nbsp;database, but you can also standardize your data collection with a model-based approach. Tasktop Data&nbsp;raises the abstraction for gathering data from your lifecycle to better enable organizations to build&nbsp;reports and visualizations. Nicole Bryan our VP of product management summed it up best when she&nbsp;referred to it as solving the last mile problem for building great reports; The first 30 miles is about&nbsp;understanding what metrics you need for your analytics program, but the last mile is critical to get to&nbsp;your goal. And the last mile is actually getting your hands on consistent, normalized data, and that’s&nbsp;what Tasktop Data does. For a more detailed description of what metrics you need or how Tasktop Data&nbsp;helps, view the <a href="http://go.tasktop.com/Doing_Analytics_Right.html">webinar series</a>&nbsp;that Nicole, Dr.&nbsp;Murray Cantor of the Cutter Consortium and I presented. The series takes you through the value of&nbsp;metrics, talks about what metrics matter and provides a preview of the functionality provided by&nbsp;Tasktop Data in today’s release.&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>This release of Tasktop Data was focused on two main themes: adding new end-points to Tasktop Data&nbsp;and improving the user experience--so it is even easier to access data and scale its use. In this release we&nbsp;added VersionOne, CA PPM, Microsoft Visual Studio Online, Microsoft TFS, IBM RTC, IBM Bluemix,&nbsp;Blueprint, HP PPM, IBM ClearQuest and iRise. &nbsp;Our new improved user interface enables users to quickly&nbsp;and easily deliver ‘bite sized chunks’ of analytics, which they can then visualize in their tool of choice.&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>The July release has been an exciting one, but don’t take my word for it. Start using it.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Happy summer everyone!</div><div>Dave</div><div>&nbsp;</div> </div>
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</div>Tue, 28 Jul 2015 00:06:00 +0000Dave West1876 at http://tasktop.comhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/summertime-and-integration-easy#commentsTasktop Sim-Shipping with Visual Studio 2015http://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/tasktop-sim-shipping-visual-studio-2015
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<div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><img alt="" class="media-image" height="96" style="float: left; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" width="225" typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://tasktop.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Visual%20Studio_4.jpg?itok=Asc7T7Xx" />We’re proud to announce that we will be sim-shipping a new release of Tasktop Sync with support for the upcoming release of Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2015!<br /><br /> Tasktop is a longstanding VSIP partner, providing IDE integration for Visual Studio and ALM integration for Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Visual Studio Online. With the next release of Sync, users will be able to synchronize work items from TFS 2015 to those in tools like Atlassian JIRA, HP ALM, IBM RTC, ServiceNow, CA PPM, Rally, and VersionOne. Just as they did with Sync and TFS 2014, users will get the same cross-team collaboration and traceability with TFS 2015. Learn more about our integration with <a href="http://tasktop.com/integrations/microsoft-team-foundation-server-sync">TFS</a> and <a href="http://tasktop.com/tasktop-dev/tasktop-dev-visual-studio">Visual Studio</a>.</p> </div>
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Tags <div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/visual-studio" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Visual Studio</a></div>
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</div>Fri, 17 Jul 2015 14:16:01 +0000Melanie Tam1756 at http://tasktop.comhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/tasktop-sim-shipping-visual-studio-2015#commentsTasktop Certified Services Programhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/tasktop-certified-services-program
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<div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p dir="ltr">We are very excited to announce the launch of the new Tasktop Certified Services Program! The Tasktop Certified Services Program enables Partners to provide Tasktop Sync professional services. Certified Services Partners learn Tasktop’s tried-and-true deployment methodologies through the <a href="http://tasktop.com/education/tasktop-university">Tasktop University</a> training courses. Joining us in our announcement are the first Tasktop Certified Services Partners: &nbsp;<a href="http://tasktop.com/certified-services-partners">A Better Solution, IntelliQA, and Sodius</a>.</p><p dir="ltr">As a Certified partner, you get access to the four Tasktop University training courses – Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, and (the newly added) Deployment skills training. The courses are instructor-led by Tasktop’s Customer Success team with virtual environments for participants to learn hands-on. Individuals who successfully complete the four courses are designated as Tasktop Certified Deployment Specialists and are certified to provide professional services and support for our flagship product Tasktop Sync. Get listed on our partner directory and, did I mention, you also get to use our snazzy new Certified Services Partner logo?</p><p dir="ltr">Read the press release <a href="http://tasktop.com/press-releases/tasktop-introduces-certified-services-partner-network">here</a> or go to our <a href="http://tasktop.com/certified-services-partner-program">program page</a> to learn more!</p> </div>
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</div>Tue, 30 Jun 2015 14:53:52 +0000Melanie Tam1701 at http://tasktop.comhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/tasktop-certified-services-program#commentsHP Discover 2015: What Happened In Vegashttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/hp-discover-2015-what-happened-vegas
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<div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p class="p1">This was the last HP Discover with a combined agenda; moving forward the conference will be split between hardware and software products and services.<br /><br />Tasktop sponsored a booth in the expo hall, staffed by business development, sales, and Tasktop executive management. It was an excellent opportunity to meet and greet our partners and customers. Wesley Coelho, director of business development, attended a few of the HP customer roundtable sessions, where customers were discussing real-life HP products and services use cases for software development lifecycle activities. The topic of integration was pretty hot, with the steady increase in adoption of tools like JIRA and Git, especially at the enterprise level.&nbsp; Where HP’s Synchronizer provides integration that jump-starts individual project development, Tasktop Sync provides enterprise-scale integration of multiple systems and their artifacts, for end-to-end SDLC traceability.&nbsp; You can watch a video of Tasktop Sync in action <a title="HERE" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc--P_829ak&amp;feature=youtu.be">HERE</a>.<br /><br />On a more social note, Tasktop CEO Mik Kersten hosted a dinner at the Del Toro restaurant for some current and prospective customers. It was great to listen to our happy, deployed customers talk about their success using Tasktop Sync to connect disparate systems…while enjoying overstuffed raviolis (DELICIOUS!). Later in the week, Tasktop sponsored a joint cabana party with our HP colleagues.&nbsp; It was fun to unwind on the rooftop of the beautiful Encore hotel with a view of the Vegas Strip at night.&nbsp;<br /><br /><img alt="" class="media-image" height="480" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="443" typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://tasktop.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/TasktopBoothHPDiscover.png?itok=4AqG4kkL" /><br />The event reinforced my view that the race to the finish line for software application delivery is increasing the spotlight on agile methodologies and DevOps practices in application development life cycle management. Gartner recently released a magic quadrant report, evaluating ALM providers to help IT leaders select appropriate technology partners for their needs. You can read the whole report <a title="HERE" href="http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1-2A61Y68&amp;ct=150218&amp;st=sb">HERE</a>.</p><p class="p1">Take note at Gartner’s mention of the importance of integration between the data artifacts of those systems. It’s a very real, very costly problem – talk to us if you need a REAL solution.&nbsp;</p> </div>
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</div>Thu, 18 Jun 2015 20:45:00 +0000Beth Beese1666 at http://tasktop.comhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/hp-discover-2015-what-happened-vegas#commentsALM Forum Industry Panelhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/alm-forum-industry-panel
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<div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><span><img alt="" class="media-image" height="233" width="480" typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://tasktop.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/alm-panel-speakers.png?itok=9nB4DKnA" /></span></p><p>In a sunny Seattle on Tuesday the 19th of May, I was fortunate enough to be invited to run an industry panel at <a href="http://www.alm-forum.com/About">ALM Forum</a>. ALM Forum is an annual event in Seattle where ALM practitioners talk about all things tools ranging from how to configure your build pipeline to running an Agile project. It is a small event in terms of numbers, but big in terms of passion and energy. The panel, which was also live streamed included 5 of the most interesting people in the ALM field: Melinda Ballou, research analyst and program director IDC, Aaron Bjork program manager responsible for Visual Studio Microsoft, Andrew Flick product leader HP ALM group, Thomas Murphey, Gartner research director/analyst, and Distinguished Engineer John Wiegand, one of the driving forces behind Eclipse, OSLC and the Rational tools strategy. With a panel comprised of such amazing people it would be hard not to have a great panel, my only challenge was to not run over (which I failed at) and ensure that everyone had a chance to talk. And here are some the highlights:</p><h3>Open and heterogeneous</h3><p>The future of ALM is open, heterogeneous, always changing. Those words would not come as a surprise from me, Melinda or Thomas, but IBM, HP and Microsoft all highlighted how the tools landscape is becoming more fractured, varied and ever-changing and that ALM needs to be inclusive of varied tool chains and tool chains that will change. All three companies highlighted how their approaches were becoming more and more inclusive of a variety of tools including open source and competitor tools. Aaron made the point that the role of tools at Microsoft was yes, to help people develop on Microsoft platforms, but also to help developers build more software. I guess if the whole ocean rises then all the boats rise on it. That was echoed by both Andy and John. John talked about the role of IBM in open source projects and why IBM is so committed to initiatives like OpenStack and Cloud Foundry. The reality is that more software ensures a bigger market for companies like HP, Microsoft and IBM. That market allows them to offer capabilities that rely on information being accessible, open and rich. &nbsp;Tools will continue to cost money, of course, but the focus seems not on making profit from traditional capabilities but instead on capabilities around their use and the use of the applications they build.<br />That then brings me to…</p><h3>Analytics and information is the new battleground</h3><p>The battleground is not activities such as development or requirements, but instead analytics and decision-making around the process of software delivery. And increasingly, smart decision-making with HP Autonomy and IBM Watson will help developers make better decisions. Tom Murphy went one step further describing the need to flow customer or Lean analytics into development to ensure that teams were building the right software. Everyone agreed that the lack of ‘data scientists’ will make it harder to make the right decisions with this information. And that an increased amount of information does not mean the right decisions are being made, but being able to get access to even simple information will be a great start.<br />This highlighted the distinction between operating the ‘real’ business process and developing the software to support that business process is blurring with truly business focused teams driving business change with technology rather than separate teams in business operations, development and IT. No one talked about DevOps, but instead highlighted something more holistic with the business…&nbsp; I guess they were describing <a href="http://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/business-devops-really-what-we-want%E2%80%A6">Business DevOps</a>.<br />This led the panel to bring up the thorny subject of design...</p><h3>User Experience must be integrated, but that is hard...</h3><p>Everyone agreed that User Experience is a crucial property of any modern application but User Experience is still a difficult set of skills to marry into modern development. The turtle-wearing designers want to focus on perfection rather than incrementally delivering capabilities in an Agile way. Andy introduced the idea that UX is a quality attribute and thus should be tested. He talked of extending testing tools to provide subjective measures of UX. Tom and Melinda added the need to instrument applications so that customer information is flowing into development to help augment UX decision-making.<br />So UX, like everything else needs data to be effective and analytics could not only provide insights into how software works, but also how the experience is being perceived by the users of it.</p><p>I believe that ALM Forum will publish a recording of the panel – which I will share when it comes out, but I wanted to publicly thank the participants – Melinda, Aaron, Andy, Tom and John who shared their insights and ideas.</p> </div>
</div>Thu, 28 May 2015 16:00:00 +0000Dave West1536 at http://tasktop.comhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/alm-forum-industry-panel#commentsMeet the Interns: Nicholas Folk, Junior Software Engineerhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/meet-interns-nicholas-folk-junior-software-engineer
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<div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><img alt="" class="media-image" height="150" style="float: left; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" width="150" typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://tasktop.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Nick-photo.jpg?itok=v1e1aiq0" />When I first applied to Tasktop, I admittedly had not heard much about the company. What drew me to the company was when I personally visited for my onsite interview. Almost everyone in the Vancouver office works in one wide open room with floor to ceiling windows giving off a bright and amicable atmosphere where everyone is approachable. My biggest concern, however, was whether Tasktop would help me build a sturdy foundation in software development and design. I had heard horror stories of fellow students' co-op experiences at other companies being unengaging and unfulfilling. So when I was told that I would be writing production level code and learning high quality design practices while doing it, I was resolved to work for Tasktop and could not be happier with that decision.</p><p>Since most of my experience writing software had been classroom-based, I was initially intimidated by the sheer size of the code base I would be working with over my term. Luckily, I have had a great team -- lead by full-time Tasktopian and Mylyn contributor Sam Davis -- that has ensured a smooth transition from the classroom to the real-world software industry. The engineers here are intelligent problem solvers, friendly, and more than helpful when I've needed anything. Everyone works hard, yet still makes time for a cold pale ale during the Friday afternoon socials, where I get to chat with the engineers who I don't interact with daily. It's also not uncommon for Mario Kart to make an appearance (or my personal favourite, Rock Band!).</p><p>Most importantly, the work I have been doing is engaging, aptly challenging, and useful for the users of the product. While I spend a large portion of my time improving <a href="http://tasktop.com/dev">Tasktop Dev</a>, one of Tasktop's original products, my team is also heavily involved in contributing to the <a href="http://tasktop.com/mylyn">Mylyn</a> open source project. Some of the recent developments I have made involve bringing the Gerrit connector up to speed with the latest API changes and even improving on certain features. The connector now supports cherry picking reviews and navigating the EGit Eclipse editor using parent commit IDs. Here's a video where I demo a few of these features:</p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HAlAnkQ2Hdk?rel=0" frameborder="0" width="560" height="315"></iframe></p><p>I will be returning to classes at UBC this summer, but I plan to continue contributing to Mylyn, using the skills that I am still developing at Tasktop. It has been a blast working with these folks and I have gained a stronger appreciation for working in a fast-paced Agile environment in the Vancouver tech scene.</p> </div>
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</div>Wed, 13 May 2015 16:15:00 +0000Nicholas Folk1526 at http://tasktop.comhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/meet-interns-nicholas-folk-junior-software-engineer#commentsWhy Integration requires a combination of linking and syncinghttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/why-integration-requires-combination-linking-and-syncing
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<div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Since its inception, Tasktop has been involved with <a href="http://open-services.net">Open Service for Lifecycle Collaboration</a> (OSLC).&nbsp; We co-authored the original specification with IBM and continue to work on the OSLC core technical committee. OSLC provides a set of open standards for connecting lifecycle tools to enable cross team traceability and collaboration. Based on the <a href="http://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/data">W3C linked data specification</a>, OSLC enables links to be established across tools, repositories and projects. Those links include semantic information that allows the consuming tool to access not only the data, but also what that data means.</p><p>The objective of OSLC is to provide a set of standards that allow all lifecycle tools to connect information in real-time. Imagine a requirement linked to a test case where, in the requirements tool, the test information was accessed and presented to the user without duplicating the test information in the requirements tool. Using the specifications provided by the OSLC standard, these external links enable the test tool to be executed in context and enable the requirements tool to expect certain information from the testing tool. In other words, specifications like OSLC enable tools to present information consistently across the lifecycle. That is the objective of OSLC.</p><p>OSLC, however, has been very slow to take off. Vendors are skeptical about the motivation behind OSLC--viewing it as an IBM driven standard. Without strong vendor support, customers don’t see the value. Without customers driving adoption, vendors will not support its adoption. This creates a textbook chicken and egg problem. No motivation to adopt by the vendors, and because of limited adoption by the vendors, no customers asking for it. Complicating the vendor adoption problem further is the fact that customers are not actively looking for a cool architecture for linking data. They simply need to find ways to solve immediate integration problems. They need a lifecycle integration strategy, and OSLC is not an integration strategy. A lifecycle integration strategy is a combination of decisions around workflow, with reviews and discussions about things like how reports are created and what tools do to support traceability with respect to compliance and governance. OSLC standards provide a set of technical capabilities that support aspects of the strategy, but they are not a complete strategy. This fact is also highlighted in the work of the EU <a href="http://www.crystal-artemis.eu/">Crystal project</a> –a project focused on solving lifecycle integration problems in the area of systems engineering.</p><p><br /> By partnering with our customers, Tasktop is able to see OSLC in the context of the integration needs of diverse organizations. This real-world view clarifies the ways that OSLC and linking fit into a broader strategy.</p><h2>A top down approach</h2><p>For any strategy to be successful, you need to begin with the needs of your users. Integration is a huge and complicated subject. Each customer organization has its own set of scenarios. Requirements may include:</p><ul><li>Flowing data:&nbsp; When a ticket’s state in tool X becomes ‘defect’ create a defect in tool Z.</li><li>Reporting: Create a report that includes data from discipline A, B for projects Q and R across tools Z and X.</li><li>Traceability: Link a requirement in tool X to a series of tests in tool Z.</li><li>Collaboration: When comments raised about artifact B appear in tool X and Z, allow users of those tools to respond and collaborate in the context of that artifact in the tools they use.</li></ul><p>Of course, many integration scenarios are a combination of these requirements. For example, customers may combine flow and collaboration, or reporting and traceability. OSLC can provide support for all of these different types of requirements, but the reality of many tools, coupled with the detailed requirements for each type of need, make OSLC the natural choice for enabling traceability. Traceability is all about linking artifacts – OSLC extends that to enable tools to link a semantically rich connection. And linking is important to any lifecycle integration strategy to support traceability, and help define and structure the flow of information. In fact, since the release of OSLC, Tasktop has been on a journey to better understand the relationships inherent in any lifecycle. This understanding has been the driver behind adding capabilities to Tasktop Sync.</p><h2>Tasktop and Linking</h2><p>In April 2014, Tasktop released artifact relationship management (ARM). The objective for ARM was to enable customers to express relationships across tools--even when relationship models in each tool were different. For example, RRC and HP ALM describe the relationship between a requirement and a test in very different ways. A customer who has requirements in RRC and tests in HP ALM requires the relationships to be described in a way that both tools understand and can act on (important not to lose the relationship between tools). Another interesting dimension of the ability to integrate links is how those links are stored. ARM enables users to store relationships differently--depending on whether the tool supports that artifact type or not. For example, the RRC data model does not support the test plan artifact. Doors NG is a requirements tool, and would expect a customer to use Rational Quality Manager (RQM) or another testing tool to manage test artifacts. HP ALM has a model representation for requirements and would expect the requirement to be stored within that tool. ARM enables users to express these different integration rules as internal associations (when the tool has the model representation) and external associations (when the tool does not). This means that sometimes internal links (links to artifacts within the tool) and external links (links to the artifact in another tool) make sense depending on the tool and what the customer is trying to achieve. Maybe it is better to provide an external link to a master artifact in another tool rather than synchronizing that artifact into the tool and using an internal link.</p><h2>So what about OSLC?</h2><p>Now that we have added context in relation to the customer needs for OSLC and how ARM supports linking, let’s circle back to how Tasktop supports OSLC. We introduced OSLC support in 2011 with our 2.0 product release. This functionality was driven by our commitment to supporting the standard, and to helping a customer who was experimenting with linking information. &nbsp;At that time, we introduced functionality that allowed customers to describe their mapping to a particular project and tool and make the mapping accessible via an OSLC provider. Tasktop Sync acts as an OSLC provider, allowing customers to create mappings for their OSLC interfaces without the need to write complex REST API’s. Tasktop also enables non-developers to create OSLC interfaces that can be consumed by any OSLC compliant tool (when this functionality was first added, only IBM Rational CLM tools were compliant).</p><p><a href="https://blog.tasktop.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/oslc-1.png"><img alt="Example of OSLC" class="media-image aligncenter size-full wp-image-9128" height="270" width="480" typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://tasktop.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/oslc-1_0.png?itok=zyJ2tr6I" /></a></p><h2>Enabling OSLC external links</h2><p>It is no surprise that Tasktop treats OSLC like any external link, enabling the link to be written in an OSLC form. Unlike many implementations of OSLC (where the link is added by the user of one tool), Tasktop Sync creates the links automatically, based on rules. &nbsp;By combining the external OSLC link with the OSLC provider that Tasktop Sync provides for non-OSLC tools, users&nbsp; can create an OSLC link with ARM, which can then be programmatically executed by the user. One good example of this is DOORS NG to HP ALM. BA’s within DOORS NG create requirements. A subset of the requirements information is synced to HP ALM allowing the testers to create the associated test cases. A traditional HP web link is provided to the HP ALM requirements, allowing the tester to see the requirement in RRC. Once the test cases are created within HP ALM, an OSLC link is provided back to RRC allowing RRC to execute traceability reporting. Also, because there is a model element within HP ALM that represents the requirement, it is possible to take advantage of HP reports and also add meta-data to the model element that is synced back to DOORs NG. This meta-data can include status or rollup test success that can be included in reports in DOORS NG or HP QC. This combination of OSLC and syncing provides tool admins with the flexibility to use the approach that best supports their needs. For example, it might benefit the BA and testers to include in-context collaboration. By having an artifact in HP ALM, comments can be written and then synchronized to DOORs NG, eliminating the need to use email to discuss a requirement. Synchronization of a requirement between RRC and HP ALM is programmatic-- it only happens when key data is entered or the state of the artifact reaches a certain point. This allows process management to be undertaken with only certain requirements entering the tester’s backlog to be worked on.&nbsp; This process automation helps manage the volume of work and supports process models such as KANBAN or Scrum. It also allows organizations to set Work In Progress (WIP) limits, allowing the introduction of Lean approaches to the management of work.</p><p><a href="https://blog.tasktop.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/oslc-2.png"><img alt="OSLC diagram" class="media-image aligncenter size-full wp-image-9128" height="270" width="480" typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://tasktop.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/oslc-2_0.png?itok=A35EwOC5" /></a></p><h2>It not about linking or synchronization it is about flexibility and value</h2><p>OSLC, like any standard, has its zealots--people who think replication is evil and OSLC is the Holy Grail of integration. But the reality is that integration is a more complex problem than any one protocol or approach can solve. &nbsp;I hope I have demonstrated that our approach combines OSLC with other integration models allowing for a solution that meets customer needs. Customers have particular needs and look to integration to help them solve process, team-work, reporting and/or compliance governance problems. Tasktop is committed to providing the infrastructure that customers need to solve problems and achieve software delivery success. OSLC is a key protocol, and as its adoption grows and usage patterns emerge, we will continue to extend our support for the protocol. It is clear from our support for OSLC that there is the need for infrastructure that connects the protocol and associated interfaces with the reality of the legacy tools and schemas. OSLC will continue to be a fundamental part of our infrastructure solution and Tasktop is committed to help drive the standard to be more inclusive of the realities of customer tool situations. I write this as both the Chief Product Officer of Tasktop AND a member of the OSLC steering group. <br /> <em>Dave West Tasktop CPO and OSLC steering group member</em></p> </div>
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</div>Tue, 05 May 2015 15:30:00 +0000Dave West1046 at http://tasktop.comhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/why-integration-requires-combination-linking-and-syncing#commentsTasktop Sync 4.2 Releasedhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/tasktop-sync-42-released
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<div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>I’m thrilled to announce the latest release of <a title="Learn more about Tasktop Sync" href="http://www.tasktop.com/sync">Tasktop Sync</a>; as always, we have a terrific mixture of enhancements! With each release we typically add new systems to the Sync Integration Network, as well as adding additional features for systems that we previously added. And Tasktop Sync 4.2 is no exception.</p><h2>Support for New Systems</h2><p>As you know, <a title="Learn more about Tasktop Sync" href="http://www.tasktop.com/sync">Tasktop Sync</a> now supports over 30 systems and the list is growing fast! In this release alone we added four new systems. Our focus this release was twofold. First, we wanted to expand our support for test management systems. To that end, we added support for <a title="Learn more about Tasktop for IBM RQM" href="http://www.tasktop.com/connectors/RQM">IBM Rational Quality Manager</a> and <a title="Learn more about Tasktop for Microsoft Test Manager" href="http://www.tasktop.com/connectors/MS-TestManager/sync">Microsoft Test Manager</a>. Think of the possibilities! Imagine finding a defect during testing, and having it automatically mirrored from Rational Quality Manager to your development tool of choice… whether it’s JIRA, Rally, TFS or any other of our supported systems. Even better, imagine the comment streams, attachments and the status seamlessly flowing between RQM and your developer tools. Or, imagine another scenario, where your organization wants to let different teams use various test case management systems, while still keeping a central source of record for all tests. No problem. Teams that want to use <a title="Learn more about Tasktop for Microsoft Test Manager" href="http://www.tasktop.com/connectors/MS-TestManager/sync">Microsoft Test Manager</a> can synchronize those test cases to your organization’s “testing system of record” (such as HP Quality Center) and, again, have seamless flow of information between the two systems.</p><p>Our second focus was to increase our support for the ServiceNow platform as they expand into new market areas such as Project and Portfolio Management and Agile Planning (SDLC). If your organization uses <a title="Learn more about Tasktop for ServiceNow SDLC" href="http://www.tasktop.com/connectors/servicenow-SDLC">ServiceNow SDLC</a> to manage your Agile projects but your test teams and business analysis teams are using other tools, you’ll want to think about setting up this integration. Use Sync to allow your development teams to use ServiceNow to manage their sprints but sync defects and requirements to your test management and requirements management tools. Maybe you’re embarking on using SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework)? Do it with confidence knowing that you can synchronize high-level business epics originating in <a title="Learn more about Tasktop for ServiceNow PPM" href="http://www.tasktop.com/connectors/servicenow-ppm/sync">ServiceNow PPM</a>, to your Agile planning tool of choice. There, your developers can break those business epics down into features and stories - keeping both the development teams and the PMO happy and productive! Of course, all our <a title="Tasktop Certified Connectors" href="http://www.tasktop.com/connectors">connectors</a> are built to support a wide variety of artifacts, so there are many more interesting scenarios you can create with them. Think of our connectors as a toolbox that allows you to craft integration scenarios that meet your particular business situation.</p><h2>New Artifacts and Attributes</h2><p>The second area of enhancements is to extend the support of previously added systems. As we learn more about how our customers use Sync, we add new support for additional artifacts and attributes to existing connectors. To whet your appetite, below is a subset of scenarios that we now support:</p><p><strong>VersionOne Tests</strong> It’s all about collaboration. Especially when it comes to effective test case development in an Agile world. With our new support for VersionOne tests, developers and testers can collaborate by having tests synced between <a title="Learn more about Tasktop for VersionOne" href="http://www.tasktop.com/connectors/versionone/sync">VersionOne</a> and their test management tool of choice.</p><p><strong>JIRA Cascading Select Fields</strong> Dealing with cascading select fields can be tricky! They dynamically update based on choices made in previous drop down fields (for example, choosing your country and then choosing your state/province). Now we support these complex fields, making your integration even more robust!</p><p><strong>JIRA Comments resulting from state transitions</strong> Now whenever <a title="Learn more about Tasktop for JIRA" href="http://www.tasktop.com/connectors/jira/sync">JIRA</a> is configured to require a comment as part of a status change, both the status change and the comment are synced to whatever system you are connected with. For example, a development team might want to enforce a policy requiring that a comment is entered when a defect is determined to be a “Won’t Fix,” or a Story is moved to “Not Complete” at the end of a sprint. Now, both the attribute and comment will always be synced together.</p><p><strong>CA PPM Incidents</strong> <a title="Learn more about Tasktop for CA PPM" href="http://www.tasktop.com/connectors/ca-clarity-ppm/sync">CA PPM</a> can be used for more than just traditional PPM capabilities. We are seeing more customers use CA to manage “Incidents” – so we’ve added support for that artifact type. Imagine, now you can have Incidents automatically create a defect in your defect management system – cool!</p><p><strong>CA PPM Dynamic Lookup Fields</strong> Have a lookup field with options that are constantly changing (such as Charge Codes)? These are different than your typical lookup list that always returns the same set of options. These fields are populated by a continually changing list of options. Now we support these fields to enhance your integrations. Our mission is to <strong><em>Connect the World of Software Delivery</em></strong>… with this release, we’re <a title="See all of our integrations" href="http://www.tasktop.com/connectors">connecting</a> more of that world, and making it easier to do so!</p> </div>
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</div>Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:23:00 +0000Nicole Bryan1045 at http://tasktop.comhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/tasktop-sync-42-released#commentsMeet the Individuals Responsible for Tasktop's Customer Journeyhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/meet-individuals-responsible-tasktops-customer-journey
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<div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>As part of our growth at Tasktop, it has been critical that we add in key leaders to sustain and facilitate that growth into the future. I’m thrilled to be talking about the new group of sales leaders we have at Tasktop and feel privileged to be working with this outstanding group.</p><p>Tasktop now has new sales leaders for Americas West, East, Central as well as a new leader for pre-sales. <img style="margin-right: 10px;" src="http://tasktop.com/sites/default/files/JamieWetzel.png" alt="" width="150" align="left" />Jamie Wetzel has been promoted from an individual contributor role to lead Americas West. I think I am most proud of this as I love when we promote from within. Now in his 5th year with the company, Jamie has proven throughout his years at Tasktop that he’s been management material by embodying our culture and frankly being a leader before ever being given the title. I think Jamie has single-handedly attempted to enable every person who comes to Tasktop, and I am glad that we are able to reward Jamie with this promotion. Truth be told, I think the company is getting the larger reward. <img style="margin-right: 10px;" src="http://tasktop.com/sites/default/files/JohnKapral.jpg" alt="" width="150" align="left" /></p><p>We recently hired John Kapral to lead our Americas East and Central regions. I love Kap’s experience, having started his career in inside sales and working his way up into sales management in a diverse enterprise software career that has spanned such stalwarts (and in some cases Tasktop partners) as Splunk, CA, Symantec, BMC and CSC. In just over 2 quarters at Tasktop, I am already finding that I am relying on Kap’s experience and expertise with sales management and can see marked improvements in Tasktop’s Go to Market process and sales execution. <img style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" src="http://tasktop.com/sites/default/files/MauryCupitt.jpg" alt="" width="150" align="left" /></p><p>I am also thrilled that this past summer, we hired Maury Cupitt to lead our pre-sales engineers. Maury has been involved with pre-sales engineering for much of his career, which included working for Netscape, AvantGo, Wily, CA, and Blue Stripe. One of my favorite things about Maury is that he has brought back and instituted the ALM Architecture diagrams to be part of our pre-sales and post-sales processes - something that was so critical in our early days, helping us plot and flow our customers’ ALM tools and the information that needed to be passed between them.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img style="margin-right: 10px;" src="http://tasktop.com/sites/default/files/lance.jpg" alt="" width="150" align="left" /></p><p>Lance Knight has been given the tremendous responsibility of managing our post-sales activities as VP of Customer Success. His team is responsible for getting our customers deployed, delivering product-related services for customers, providing post-sales support, conducting customer health checks, teaching our customers through our extremely well-reviewed <a href="http://www.tasktop.com/training">training courses</a>, and driving our knowledge management assets. Like everything Lance touches, he has embraced the role of Customer Success. Lance likes to remind us that his job title is a bit of a misnomer since we all are responsible for Customer Success. Regardless, I feel very fortunate to have Lance leading this team as Tasktop continues to grow.</p><p>Yes, we have great innovative products. But working for a company is about the people. And I am proud to be working at Tasktop because we have an outstanding staff of intelligent, hardworking, self-motivated team members who love to win. If you read this and are excited by what you are hearing and are interested in exploring career options at Tasktop, check out our <a href="http://www.tasktop.com/about/careers">careers pages</a> or <a href="http://go.tasktop.com/contact-us">contact us</a>.</p> </div>
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</div>Fri, 17 Apr 2015 15:15:00 +0000Neelan Choksi1040 at http://tasktop.comhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/meet-individuals-responsible-tasktops-customer-journey#commentsIEEE DevOps Unleashed calls for a holistic approach to DevOpshttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/ieee-devops-unleashed-calls-holistic-approach-devops
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<div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Austin is famous for many things, but in the tech community South By Southwest (<a href="http://sxsw.com/">SXSW</a>) has emerged as one of the go to events for technical innovation. SXSW is considered to be the launch pad for getting the word out on many great ideas. So, when I was asked to speak at <a href="http://www.computer.org/web/symposia/devops-unleashed">IEEE DevOps Unleashed</a> I was excited about the chance to connect with the Austin technical community and catch a little bit of the South By magic without having to deal with the crowds of the real event.</p><p>The IEEE CS DevOps symposium is a popular series of regional events that bring people together to talk about the DevOps movement. At the Austin event, I joined Bernard Golden (<a href="http://twitter.com/bernardgolden">@bernardgolden</a>), VP of Strategy at Active State, and Bernie Coyne (<a href="http://twitter.com/berniecoyne">@berniecoyne</a>) DevOps evangelist at IBM. Both shared very interesting views on the importance, challenges and potential approaches to DevOps. What was truly interesting about the talks, in my opinion, were the things not being talked about, or only mentioned in passing. For many organizations, DevOps is associated with release management and is squarely focused on the problem of reducing the overhead of software releases. And, although it is true for many organizations that the relationship between development and operations most visibly falls apart during the release process, the actual disconnect is much broader.</p><p>This holistic definition of DevOps has emerged in part because vendors want to associate their products with a great marketing campaign and industrial movement. But it has also emerged because the breakage between the two groups exists in many places. &nbsp;Each speaker approached this problem from their perspective. Bernard described three areas that must change in order to enable DevOps:</p><ol><li>Business Agility – the business side of rapid delivery</li><li>Technical Innovation – the development practices and approaches that are affected, and</li><li>Infrastructure choice – the realities of DevOps on the stack and architecture used.</li></ol><p>Only when you consider all of these areas do you create the foundation necessary for DevOps. Release automation was only mentioned as one aspect of Technical Innovation. Important, yes, but not the only focus area.</p><p><img alt="devops-chart" class="media-image aligncenter size-full wp-image-9103" height="270" style="float: left; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" width="480" typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://tasktop.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/devops-chart_0.png?itok=JL0DIwNg" /></p><p>Bernie provided an overview of the IBM approach to DevOps--mapping the need for DevOps in an organization that is competing with much smaller, nimble software companies. He described the breadth of IBM offerings and how IBM strives for using a DevOps approach in the context of a company that has both the weight of many years of process and the heft of 400K people. Bernie highlighted the importance of an incremental approach--one that focuses first on the practice areas that are the most broken, slowly adopting the changes that make sense. He described DevOps not as standard pattern that every organization can just blindly follow, but rather a series of recipes that will be different for each adoption model. If you reviewed IBM, you would find that very different processes and practices are being employed, but all of them are striving to break down the barriers between operations and engineering. <a href="https://blog.tasktop.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ibm-devops.png"><img alt="ibm-devops" class="media-image aligncenter size-full wp-image-9105" height="360" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" width="480" typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://tasktop.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ibm-devops_0.png?itok=EKAg4mcm" /></a></p><p>Both Bernie and Bernard painted holistic, complete views of the transformation necessary to delivery software faster and reduce waste. I carried on this theme with the forgotten side of DevOps, concentrating on the lifecycle aspects of DevOps, and how we need to manage both the assets (code, infrastructure) and the work in a consistent, automated, and measured way. &nbsp;Only by connecting or automating both the asset and artifact approaches does an organization effectively break down the barriers that disconnect the lifecycle and create waste.&nbsp;</p><p><a href="https://blog.tasktop.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/devops-holistic.png"><img alt="devops-holistic" class="media-image aligncenter size-full wp-image-9104" height="216" style="float: left; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" width="385" typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://tasktop.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/devops-holistic_0.png?itok=gnR_S5aW" /></a></p><p>In the panel section of the event, there were many interesting questions, including: how can you apply these principles to operating systems or hardware development, and should you treat infrastructure the same way you treat code? A theme also emerged about objectives and measurement--without clear consistent shared goals and an effective way of measuring them you will never drive change in your organization. Bernard described shared metrics as the cornerstone of cultural change. And it became clear that if you measure development for change and operations for stability change is not only hard to execute on, but will never become embedded within an organization.</p> </div>
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</div>Fri, 10 Apr 2015 16:21:00 +0000Dave West1044 at http://tasktop.comhttp://tasktop.com/content/blog-entry/ieee-devops-unleashed-calls-holistic-approach-devops#comments